New Player's Guide Chapter 1: Game basics
Welcome to Gary Grigsby's War in the East. Upon opening the game, you will be provided with this title screen: From here, you can choose which factions are player by a human or the computer AI; choose an AI-only match to sit and watch both sides go at it, or select both sides as Human to play against yourself, or a hot-seat two-player match with a friend, but typically you will have Human for one side and AI for the other for single-player games. In games with AI, choose AI difficulty between Easy, Normal, Challenging, Hard, and Impossible. As you gain more skill in WitE playing against the AI, even the Impossible setting will provide less of a challenge; at that point, you may have the skill needed to play competitively in multiplayer. From this point, set difficulty to Normal, Axis to Computer, and Soviet to Human, then click Pick Scenario. You will see this screen appear. Depending on whether you purchased either of the game's expansions, the list may have fewer scenarios listed. Scroll to the bottom and select the scenario "Velikie Luki '42 Tutorial" and press the Load Scenario icon that appearas at the lower left portion of the screen. NOTE: While there is a lot of information immediately available, you don't need to worry about what it means until this guide covers it. There are three main parts of the game screen: the toolbar, the map, and the units. The main toolbar on top of the screen contains three tabs: * Map Information, which changes what is or is not displayed on the map,such as fort levels. * Info Screens, which leads to different menus that give more in-depth information on the game, your army, and the map's effects. * Administration, which deals with game preferences, hotkey lists, and saving or exiting the current game. Below the main toolbar are various icons hot-keyed to the Function keys, as well as others such as the End Turn button. On the right end of the toolbar is a window showing info of the currently selected space, victory points, and other information. Now for the map. The map takes up the majority of the screen below the toolbar. As you can see, the game map is separated into a hex grid. Each hex is scaled to represent 10 miles on each side. Each hex shows different visual information, such as terrain type, bodies of water such as rivers, lakes, and oceans, and rail lines passing through the hex. On the bottom left of the screen in the mini map, which shows your position in the greater game map as well as allowing you to click to quickly jump to a different part of the map. Otherwise, you can move the displayed section of the map around by moving your mouse to the edge of the map, or right-clicking to center the map on the hex (when no units are selected). You can also use the mouse wheel, the + and - keys, and the Zoom In and Zoom Out buttons under the Map Information tab to change the zoom level of the map. Finally you have your units. Unit ownership is determined by color; in this scenario, the Axis control units from the German Army (grey), the Luftwaffe ('Air Force', in grey-and-blue), and, in later turns of the scenario, a non-elite SS unit (grey-and-black; an elite SS unit would be solid black). The Soviets control Soviet Regular units (tan) and Soviet Guards units (red). Unless stated otherwise, different colors within the same army are effectively identical in combat, though they have different chains of command or supply lines. Continue on the Chapter 2 to learn the basics of ground combat. Chapter 2: Unit Basics